The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song. What do I write about? I never know.
— Nick Cave
When I'm singing 'Deanna,' for example, which I sing pretty much every night, it brings forward a kind of imagined, romanticized lie about this particular person, which I find really comforting and exciting to sing about.
Most of the time, feelings just seem to get in the way. They're a luxury for the idle, a bourgeois concept. Feelings are overrated.
Being a parent can make you a horrible person at times, because you're pushed to the limit constantly.
Film seems to be a medium designed for betrayal and violence.
To me, I don't write when I'm depressed. If I'm depressed, which is actually rare, I'm not doing anything, you know, and I'm not able to do anything.
Moving to the country is a very bold thing to do. You can have vague romantic notions about doing that, but in actuality, it can be a terrifying thing.
I have an armchair interest in gardening, but I don't like to get my knees dirty. I don't have a garden.
No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want.
I love being manipulated by what I see. I love weepies and romantic comedies where you're reaching for the Kleenex at the right moment.
The idea of acting is something that absolutely repulses me. I just can't do it. I'm terrible at it. I get roped into films every now and then, and it's always a disaster.
Look, when I look back, from 20 onwards, I was actually having a pretty good time, I have to say.
I get criticized for a lot of what I write about, but as far as I'm concerned I'm actually standing up and having a look at what goes on in the minds of men, and I have the authority to talk about it because I'm a man.
I've always worn suits. To me they're a very practical kind of thing to wear. You put one on and don't really have to think about what you're going to wear.
Everything that's said against me offends me, whether it's true or not.
In getting older, I find myself becoming progressively more ineffectual in a lot of different ways, and part of that is down to no longer having the youthful feeling that what you're doing has any true impact.
I see it as my duty in some way is to be out in the world as an Australian putting forward what I consider to be authentic Australian music.
Some people, myself in particular, have an adversarial relationship with the camera, and it sprouts up in every photograph.
You write a scene, and it works or it doesn't. It's immediate.
There's always pain around. That's one thing you can guarantee in life - there will always be a surplus of pain.
I'm not religious, and I'm not a Christian, but I do reserve the right to believe in the possibility of a god.
I don't have any authority to talk about the domestic policies of America. But as an outsider, I am mystified by the fact that you are encouraged to buy a gun, but if you use it for the purpose that it is expressly designed for, you get the death penalty. That aspect of America is kind of mystifying.
Most of my ideals and stuff really come from my mother.
If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that.
I don't know, maybe Australian humour isn't supposed to be funny. It's as dry as the Sahara, and I think people miss that.
The concept of God in America is very different than it is in England. Because we see the horrendous outcome of religion as being an American thing, in which the name of God has been hijacked by a gang of psychopaths and bullies and homophobes, and the name of God has been used for their own twisted agendas.
What I'm resistant to is the 'Walk the Line' biopic, where you have this redemptive life done in two hours. It just doesn't wash with me. I've been there and things don't work out that way.
I know when I sit with my band members and we're playing back a song that we've done, I know that they're experiencing it in a completely different way and hearing stuff that they're alerted to because the way the interpret the world is through their ears. Mine is through my eyes.
When you're talking about rock n' roll, myth-making is what it's all about.
I'm not a misogynist, so you can dispense with that. I think I've done wonders for the feminist movement.
I'm a big fan of teatowels and am always on the lookout for a good one.
I write hate lyrics really well. It's not every day you can use them, really.
At school I was an anti-magnet for women.
I was reading The Bible a lot through my 20s, mostly the Old Testament, just because I was knocked out by the language and the stories. I felt that the God being talked about there, who was this insane, vindictive patriarch - it was kind of thrilling, and titillated something in me at the time.
I would hate to think my songs were giving advice to people.
The last thing I ever wanted to get involved with is Hollywood. The way it works is that people get an idea you could possibly do something, but there's a one-in-a-hundred chance that it could get made.
I'm not someone who's particularly in touch with the way they feel. I've heard it said that you should be a 'human being' not a 'human doing', but I'm a human doing, very much so.
I'm an Australian, and when I grew up much of my influences were American - blues music and country music, all that sort of thing.
You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.
The guitar is something you kind of embrace, and the piano is something you kind of - when you play it, you sort of push it away. It feels very different.
I suspect the older you get the more invisible you become.
If you're Australian, you feel it in your bones because you're at odds with everybody else, except other Australians, in the sense that people always seem to be behaving strangely. People always seem to be behaving the wrong way, in a different way. You say things and there are silences.
I have a particular dislike for children's films. I'm way past the novelty aspect.
It's an Australian thing to be dismissive. We find that endearing. Americans don't. They believe what you say.
At the end, we're kind of observers - creative people, I mean. I feel like an observer, and I'm pretty much able to step out of things and see how things are playing out.
I have a very strange relationship in general with women around my music. There's some that understand it and some that think there should be a law against it.
A gentleman never talks about his tailor.
I love performing. I can get to be that person I always wanted to be - godlike.
My records are basically a litany of complaints against the world, and I'm quite like that in real life as well.
I'm kind of old-school and love nothing more than sitting, opening a book, and reading it. But I also love listening to audio books.
